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Introduction

Courtesy of the New York City Police Department

The
preamble to the United States Constitution says that one of the purposes of government is to “insure domestic Tranquility.” This means that it is the responsibility of government to enforce law and to preserve order so that citizens may go about their daily business peaceably and secure in their lives, possessions, and rights. To achieve these goals most societies have organizations called police forces to maintain order, investigate lawbreaking, and apprehend criminals. Police forces are part of the criminal justice system, which also includes the courts, prosecuting and defense attorneys, and prisons.

Many of the regulatory powers of government involve some kind of policing activity. In the United States, for example, Immigration and Customs Enforcement is empowered to apprehend undocumented aliens and to inspect anything imported into the country. The Internal Revenue Service may use any means at its disposal to collect taxes and to prosecute those who fail to file income-tax returns. This article, however, deals with local, state, and national law-enforcement agencies normally described as police forces.

The words police and politics are related. Both are derived from the Greek term for city-state and have to do with the administration and oversight of communities of people. Police operations vary from country to country. In some countries the police are highly militarized and nearly indistinguishable from the armed forces, but in most Western-style democracies the police are a nonmilitary force. Police are typically responsible for maintaining public order and safety, enforcing the law, and preventing, detecting, and investigating criminal activities. In the early 21st century, following the September 11 attacks in the United States, police played an increasingly important role in combating terrorism.

National Police Organizations

The organization of police forces varies around the world. Many countries have centralized, or national, police organizations. Among them are France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Sweden, Finland, China, and Turkey. In some countries with centralized police forces, there may be different forces for different purposes. Italy, for example, has three national forces. The State Police are responsible for most normal police duties, including maintenance of public order, criminal detection, and highway patrol. The Carabinieri is an arm of the military but has both military and civil police functions. It is charged with keeping public order, riot control, and antiterrorist activities. The Financial Police, or Treasury Guard, enforce tax laws, combat financial and computer crimes, and patrol the border. Apart from these national forces, most cities and towns have municipal police in charge of traffic control and the enforcement of local laws.

FBI

In
Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and the United States, the police system is decentralized—under the control of national, regional, and local authorities. The U.S. system is perhaps the world’s most decentralized, with tens of thousands of separate police forces. Nearly every local government of any size has at least one police officer. There are also county police often under the authority of a sheriff. Each state has a police force. And at the national level there are the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the United States Marshals’ Service, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and others. The well-known Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has no police or law-enforcement powers (seeintelligence agencies).

India has a decentralized police system with a complex structure. After India became independent in 1947, the All-India Services were established for public administration. One of those services is the Indian Police Service, which trains officers for the police forces of the states and big cities, such as New Delhi and Mumbai (Bombay). Although police leaders are trained at least in part by the Indian Police Service, the various states and main cities have different police forces with their own specific features. India also has central security agencies, such as the Border Security Force, the Central Reserve Police Force, and the National Security Guard, which specialize in counterterrorism. Although they are national services, their members may be dispatched to particular areas to help solve local problems.

International Police Organizations

Interpol
is the more common name for the International Criminal Police Organization, which has more than 180 member countries. In 1914 the first International Congress of Criminal Police convened in Monaco. One of the proposals put before the delegates was the creation of an international record-keeping office on crime. Nothing came of the proposal until after World War I. The next convention met in Vienna, Austria, in 1923 and founded the International Criminal Police Commission. The commission was reorganized in 1946 and again in 1956, when its current name was adopted. The headquarters is in Lyon, France.

Interpol is mainly a data-collection agency, and its information is passed to countries that need it. Crimes of particular concern for Interpol are trafficking in human beings, cross-boundary financial and organized crime, and international terrorism. Bureaus of Interpol operating within member countries may investigate crimes and apprehend criminals at the request of another country, but the organization must act in accordance with the laws of the country in which a bureau is located. Criminals can be returned to another country only if there is an extradition treaty in force and the offender is a national of the country requesting the return.

Interpol is no longer the only international policing organization. In the early 21st century, police cooperation between members of the European Union (EU) was rapidly developing based on legislation passed by the European Parliament, including agreements and conventions against terrorism, drug trafficking, trafficking in human beings, money laundering, and organized crime. The European Police Office (Europol), established in 1992 as the European Drugs Unit, supports the law enforcement agencies of all EU countries by gathering and analyzing intelligence about international criminal organizations.

The Scope of Police Work

Police work has developed considerably from what it was centuries ago. In the past, family, schools, and the church were the major institutions regulating social behavior. As populations grew and these institutions became less effective in this role, police became increasingly necessary. However, no uniform worldwide system of policing ever emerged, leading to remarkable diversity in police systems.

The activities of police forces are adapted to the kinds of societies in which they operate. The types of crime typically committed in a society and the methods used by criminals play a great part in determining police work. For instance, if criminals use firearms, the police are likely to be armed, or if criminals use computers to commit crimes, the police may establish a special unit dedicated to investigating such crimes. Population plays an important role as well, because policing rural areas and villages vastly differs from policing large cities.

At
a basic level, however, police work can be divided into various tasks. The largest number of officers is usually assigned to uniformed patrol, most often in motor vehicles but sometimes on foot, on horseback, or on bicycles. Police on patrol spend only a small portion of their time fighting crime—for example, by making arrests. Most of their time goes to resolving disputes, providing emergency services, and maintaining order. Police also respond to the scenes of crimes to assist victims and to investigate, which includes interviewing witnesses and collecting evidence. Police officers whose main job is investigating crimes are called detectives. When a criminal case goes to court, police officers often testify about details of their investigation. Another police task is traffic regulation, which means assuring a smooth flow of traffic as well as detaining drivers who break the rules of the road.

In the realm of preserving order, one of the most challenging problems of policing is crowd control. Crowds that have the potential to become violent form for various reasons, including planned political protests. Such crowds also may gather spontaneously. In many countries, with the exception of Western-style democracies, the military, rather than the police, performs crowd control. Western democratic countries typically have militarized units within the police force that are charged with policing crowds. These units bear various names, such as special weapons and tactics teams (SWAT teams). Even these countries, however, sometimes call on the military to police crowds, especially in disaster situations and in situations in which rioters are heavily armed.

High-level police work is directed at protecting national security. This type of policing is performed by both national police forces and specialized agencies, such as the FBI and the Secret Service in the United States, MI5 in the United Kingdom, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service, and India’s Intelligence Bureau (IB). These organizations usually deal with domestic or internal threats to national security, whereas the military or military-intelligence agencies generally handle foreign or external threats. Police work of this kind depends primarily on intelligence, which comes from both human and technological sources.

Police Equipment and Technology

As science has advanced, so too has the technology that police rely upon to prevent crime and apprehend criminals. Early examples of police technology date from ancient and medieval times. For example, the ancient Egyptians used detailed word descriptions of individuals, and the Babylonians pressed fingerprints into clay to identify the author of cuneiform writings and to protect against forgery. Nevertheless, early technology was quite crude, such as the medieval method of trial by combat, in which the innocence of suspects was established by their survival in a battle. Formalized police departments were established in the late 17th century in Europe, and since then technologies have developed rapidly and made police work a more scientific practice.

Personal Equipment

Some police officers wear uniforms, while others, such as detectives, work in everyday clothing, called plain clothes. All police, whether uniformed or plain-clothed, carry a variety of equipment with them on service calls. Police in uniform carry much more equipment than those in plain clothes, and members of special operations teams, such as SWAT and crowd-control units, carry even more, sometimes including full body armor.

The amount of equipment carried by uniformed officers has grown considerably since the 1950s, when it basically consisted of a handgun in a holster, handcuffs, and a nightstick. Today, uniformed police officers in North American cities typically carry an automatic pistol, spare clips of ammunition, metal and plastic handcuffs, a portable radio, pepper spray, and a collapsible baton. In addition, many police officers carry first-aid kits and other medical equipment, such as a defibrillator, in their patrol cars; they also may carry a portable breath analyzer for testing drivers who may be under the influence of alcohol. To this basic equipment many police officers add cell phones or pagers, flashlights, binoculars, audio recorders, portable scanners, and plastic gloves.

The bulletproof vest is an essential piece of equipment. It covers the torso of the officer and is worn either over or under the uniform shirt. Many bulletproof vests are made with the fiber Kevlar, which is capable of stopping most handgun bullets and many types of knives. Even stronger vests, made of ceramic and fiber combinations that can withstand rifle fire, are used in bomb-disposal operations.

Weapons

In most police forces in the world, officers carry small firearms and are instructed to make minimal use of them. In some places there are military police forces that are heavily armed with automatic rifles and submachine guns, such as the AK-47 used in countries in the Middle East, Asia, and other regions. A small number of police forces, including those of the United Kingdom and New Zealand, allow firearms but severely restrict their use. Finally, some police forces, such as those of the cities of continental Europe, do not carry firearms in any circumstances.

The first practical police firearm, the revolver, was patented in 1835 by Samuel Colt. The double-action revolver was introduced in the 1850s. Unlike the Colt, which needed to be cocked before firing, the double-action revolver could be fired by simply pulling the trigger, allowing for quicker fire. In the United States and throughout the British Empire, the double-action revolver was the police firearm of choice for more than a century. In the 1970s police departments in the United States began slowly to replace revolvers with semiautomatic pistols. Semiautomatics had more firing power and could be refilled with cartridges much more quickly through the use of magazines. The replacement of revolvers by semiautomatic firearms is now a worldwide police trend. Yet many plainclothes police officers all over the world still use revolvers. More powerful firearms, such as shotguns and rifles, are kept in police arsenals for use in emergencies and special operations.

Firing a gun is called use of deadly force, because serious injury or death can result. Police also have a number of nonlethal weapons at their disposal. The oldest of these are a variety of striking instruments, such as batons (known as nightsticks or billy clubs) and clubs. Chemical weapons are compounds that cause tearing of the eyes, extreme discomfort, or vomiting. These chemicals can be delivered by a handheld grenade, grenade launcher, or shotgun. Electronic devices include the stun gun, which delivers an electric charge that temporarily disables. These guns have become a common part of police arsenals. The TASER (a registered trademark) is a type of electronic control device that fires two barbed projectiles that deliver an electric charge without requiring the officer to come within arm’s reach of the suspect. Other nonlethal weapons include devices that use sound, light, or heat to cause confusion, pain, or temporary blindness.

Vehicles

Courtesy of the New York City Police Department

Police
officers once patrolled on foot or, in larger rural areas, on horseback. Today it is more likely that they travel in a squad car. The city of Akron, Ohio, claims to have deployed the first automobile police patrol wagon in 1899, and by World War I many urban police departments were using motorized patrols. Automobiles transformed police work, allowing police to expand their patrol areas and reducing the time required for responding to incidents. By the 21st century the modern big-city patrol vehicle was equipped with numerous electronic devices, including radios, siren and light controls, a public-address system, a cellular telephone, a radar unit to measure motorists’ speed, and, in many places, a computer for access to police databases.

Courtesy of the New York City Police Department

The
array of duties performed by police today requires a variety of different vehicles. For example, traffic-law enforcement is often conducted by patrol officers on motorcycles, though cars also are commonly used. In the United States, police often drive sport-utility vehicles (SUVs) for highway patrol. In Germany and Italy, police may use sports cars, such as Porsches, BMWs, and even Ferraris, for high-speed chases. Some police forces use vehicles adapted from military vehicles, such as armored cars and personnel carriers, for high-risk operations. Aircraft, especially helicopters, are used in some large police departments for monitoring traffic, rescue missions, and searches. Police departments that patrol waterfronts use motorboats.

Despite the many advances in police vehicles, both foot and mounted patrols continue to be used throughout the world. Foot patrol is used in congested urban areas, in high-density housing complexes, and at special events. Mounted patrol is also used for special events and for crowd control. Bicycle patrol, first used in Europe in the late 19th century, made a comeback in the late 20th and early 21st centuries as a compromise between foot and car patrols. Bicycles are useful for patrolling urban parks, housing complexes, and school campuses.

Communications

The
ability of officers to communicate instantly with each other is essential to police work. Telegraphs were first used in London, England, in the mid-19th century to connect district police stations to headquarters at Scotland Yard. In the late 1870s police departments began installing telephone systems. Two-way radio receivers were first used in 1933 in Bayonne, New Jersey, and their use proliferated in the 1940s. Radios in patrol cars were eventually supplemented by portable radios carried by individual officers to allow uninterrupted radio contact between officers and the command center.

Police radio-communications systems benefited from the development of computers, which made possible the quick retrieval of information on stolen property, wanted persons, and other police intelligence. Computers were eventually placed in patrol cars. These mobile digital terminals (MDTs) enable officers to check licenses, wanted-persons lists, and warrants. MDTs have been supplemented with a wide variety of digital pagers and cellular phones.

The police were early adopters of computer database technology. In the United States the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) was established in 1967; police records were then computerized and made available to police agencies throughout the country. The NCIC’s database contains fingerprints, a registry of sexual offenders, and mug shots, and it can be queried for detailed information on stolen vehicles and warrants for firearms violations. Member countries of the European Union can exchange data about criminals, missing persons, stolen property, and other matters through the Schengen Information System. Interpol also maintains databases of fingerprints, DNA profiles, and other information.

Surveillance

The two main types of surveillance require either listening devices or visual instruments. Audio surveillance, or electronic eavesdropping, may be defined as intercepting conversations without the knowledge or consent of the participants. The most commonly used form is wiretapping, the interception of landline or cellular telephone communications. Modern surveillance systems allow investigators to record the numbers of both incoming and outgoing calls, as well as any conversations. Other technologies enable audio surveillance through covert miniature microphones and radio transmitters and a variety of radio-receiving and voice-recording equipment. Some wireless microphones are so small that they can be hidden in virtually any object.

Police Dogs

Dogs were first trained for police work at the turn of the 20th century in Belgium, and the practice was soon adopted elsewhere. Certain breeds with especially keen senses have been used for special purposes, such as detecting illegal drugs and explosives and tracking fugitives and missing persons. However, the most widely trained dog for regular patrol work is the German shepherd, or Alsatian. Other breeds that are sometimes used include boxers, Doberman pinschers, Airedale terriers, rottweilers, schnauzers, and bloodhounds.

Crime-Scene Investigation and Forensics

The first police crime laboratory was established by Edmond Locard in 1910 in Lyon, France. Locard believed that it is impossible for criminals to escape a crime scene without leaving behind evidence that can be used to identify them. This idea gave rise to the forensic sciences, which are methods for developing and analyzing physical evidence from crime scenes. Crime-scene investigation, which is often performed by experts known as crime-scene investigators (CSIs), involves the careful gathering of such evidence, which is then analyzed at a crime laboratory.

Evidence Collection

FBI

Because
there is rarely more than one opportunity to obtain evidence from a crime scene, the investigation by the CSIs must be methodical and complete. CSIs collect evidence that may have been touched or microscopically “contaminated” by the suspect or suspects. Among the types of evidence gathered for analysis are fingerprints, footprints, tire tracks, paint, bullets, tool marks, blood and other body fluids, hair, fibers, dirt, dust, and handwriting.

After a preliminary search, the crime scene is photographed; some police departments also make a videotape of the scene. CSIs take careful measurements, make detailed notes, and draw sketches. Scientific and technological advances have resulted in the development of laser and alternative-light sources that can reveal latent fingerprints, stains, hairs, fibers, and other so-called trace evidence. For example, luminol, a substance that emits light when in contact with blood, is capable of detecting blood traces that have been diluted up to 10,000 times, making it useful for searching crime scenes that were cleaned to hide evidence. In addition, the patterns of blood stains often indicate many of the dynamics of the crime. Investigators trained in blood-pattern analysis can determine, for example, whether a victim was standing still, walking, or running at the time of death.

All material gathered during a criminal investigation must be reported, recorded, classified, analyzed, processed, and stored. All evidence must be marked for identification and protectively packaged. Records must be made of each piece of evidence and its location in relation to a crime. The law speaks of a “chain of custody” in relation to the handling of evidence, which must remain unbroken to prevent tampering. The police are held accountable for every piece of evidence from the time it is discovered at the scene of a crime until it is presented in court.

Fingerprinting

Courtesy of the Federal Bureau of Investigation

One
of the first significant achievements in forensic science was the development of techniques for identifying individuals by their fingerprints. Introduced into police work in the 1890s, fingerprinting has proved an invaluable means of personal identification in criminal investigations. Fingerprints are a valid means of identification because the pattern of ridges on every finger of every person is unique. Fingerprints are classified by general shapes or contours; by relative size, which is determined by counting the ridges in loops and by tracing the ridges in whorls; and by positions on the fingers of the patterns.

The fingerprints left by people on objects that they have touched can be either visible or latent. Visible prints may be left behind by substances that stick to the fingers—such as dirt or blood—or they may take the form of an impression made in a soft substance, such as clay. Latent fingerprints left by traces of sweat, oil, or other natural secretions on the skin, and they are nearly invisible to the naked eye. They can be developed, or made visible, by brushing them with powder when the surface is hard and by chemical techniques when the surface is porous. The latent prints are preserved as evidence either by photography or by lifting powdered prints on the adhesive surfaces of tape.

The modern interest in fingerprint identification dates from 1880, when letters on the subject from Englishmen Henry Faulds and William J. Herschel were published in the journal Nature. Working independently, the two men demonstrated the uniqueness and permanence of individual fingerprints. Their thesis was soon verified by Sir Francis Galton, whose work was used by Sir Edward R. Henry as the basis for a classification system. The Henry classification system was published in 1900 and is now the most commonly used system. Another classification system was devised by Juan Vucetich of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and published in 1904. It is still used in most Spanish-speaking countries.

Fingerprints provide police with extremely strong physical evidence tying suspects to evidence or crime scenes. Yet, until the computerization of fingerprint records, there was no practical way of identifying a suspect solely on the basis of latent fingerprints left at a crime scene, because police would not know which set of prints on file (if any) might match those left by the suspect. This changed in the 1980s when the Japanese National Police Agency established the first practical system for matching prints electronically. Today police in most countries use such systems, called automated fingerprint identification systems (AFIS), to search quickly through millions of digitized fingerprint records.

DNA Fingerprinting

The
technique of DNA fingerprinting is now considered the most reliable form of identification by many investigators and scientists. DNA is the genetic material found in all body cells. Except for identical twins, the DNA code for each individual is as unique as fingerprints. Chemical examination of DNA left at a crime scene—in blood, skin, or hair, for example—can render positive identification when compared with the DNA of a suspect. Since its development in the 1980s, DNA fingerprinting has led to the conviction of numerous criminals and to the freeing from prison of many individuals who were wrongly convicted.

The Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), developed by the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI, combines computer technology with forensics, enabling investigators to compare DNA samples against a database of DNA records of convicted offenders and others. CODIS is used worldwide for sharing and comparing DNA data; it is available for free to all police forensics laboratories. The first national DNA database (NDNAD) in the United Kingdom was established in 1995. Other countries, including France, Canada, and Japan, created DNA databases as well.

Forensic Analysis

Different types of evidence require different methods of forensic analysis. Hair is examined for characteristics that indicate some general features of the individual from whom it came, such as what diseases he may have and sometimes what race he belongs to. Blood and other body fluids also have various elements that can be used to identify the particular groups to which potential suspects belong. Toxicologists examine blood and tissues to determine the presence and quantity of drugs or poisons in a person’s body. Document examiners study papers found as evidence to identify handwriting and determine the age of the document. Firearms identification, or ballistics testing, can be used to determine whether bullets were fired from a suspect weapon by examining markings on the bullets. Similar techniques are applied to marks left behind at crime scenes by pry bars, screwdrivers, and other tools.

Various other life and physical sciences are used to perform forensic analysis in police investigations. Forensic pathologists conduct an autopsy in cases of violent, unexplained, or unattended deaths, closely examining wounds, blood, and tissue to ascertain how and when a person died. Forensic anthropology is mainly concerned with the identification of human skeletal remains. Forensic odontologists examine teeth and bite marks, which can be used to identify a crime victim or a suspect. Forensic computing became an important field as the use of computers and the Internet grew rapidly in the late 20th century. Police, often assisted by computer experts, examine computers to identify suspects in crimes such as hacking (the illegal entry into and use of a computer network) and the programming and distribution of malicious computer viruses.

Interrogation of Suspects and Witnesses

Although scientific methods have proved invaluable to police investigations, the most efficient method of determining the facts in any police matter is also the oldest: the questioning of those involved, whether alleged offenders, victims, witnesses, or bystanders. The probability of solving a crime drops dramatically when there are no witnesses of any kind. However, reliance on questioning is hampered by having to determine if the respondent is telling the truth, is being evasive, or has a faulty memory.

The goal in questioning a suspect is usually to obtain a confession, or an admission of guilt, which eliminates the need for a trial. Most countries place restrictions on the scope and methods of interrogation to ensure that suspects are not forced into confessions by unacceptable methods. In the United States, for example, alleged offenders must be read the Miranda warning, telling them of their right to remain silent, their right to have an attorney, and the fact that anything they say may be used against them in court. This warning gets its name from the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the case Miranda v. Arizona (1966) on procedures of police interrogations. Failure to advise a suspect of these rights can result in the rejection of a confession as evidence.

In contrast, British law focuses on whether the confession itself was voluntary, rather than on whether proper procedures were followed by the police. With minor exceptions, a person suspected or accused of a criminal offense is not required to answer any question or to give evidence. Interrogation is regulated by the Judges’ Rules, first drawn up in 1913 and since revised. If an officer has sufficient evidence that an offense has been committed, he must caution the suspect. After a suspect has been formally charged, he must be cautioned again before further questioning can take place.

Other countries generally have similar legal requirements, though the actual practices in those countries may be quite different. Russia, for example, has a rule on confessions that is quite similar to the Miranda warnings. In China a suspect has the legal right to remain silent, there is no legal penalty for the refusal to answer questions, and police are forbidden to obtain confessions through the use of force. However, in practice, police in some countries sometimes use physical force to obtain confessions, and such illegally obtained evidence is not excluded at trial.

A valuable tool in police interrogations is the lie detector, or polygraph, which monitors and records bodily changes that reflect a person’s emotional condition during questioning. The first modern lie detector was made in 1921 by John A. Larson, a medical student at the University of California, and the machines have been used by police since 1924. The lie detector is based on the premise that a person who is lying will have subtle but measurable changes in certain physical indicators. While the test subject answers questions, the machine records respiration, heart rate, blood pressure, and galvanic skin response—a change in the flow of electrical current across the skin that can result from emotional arousal. Taken together and interpreted by an expert, the results of such measurements may indicate an attempt to deceive. Some psychologists question the scientific validity of the lie detector, however, and thus its evidence is not always admissible in court.

History of Policing in the West

The earliest civilizations found ways of enforcing laws and maintaining order. The ancient Sumerians had a police force, as did the Egyptian pharaohs, the Babylonians, and the Greek city-states. Sometimes law enforcement was in the hands of religious authorities or the military instead of political rulers. Some early police forces developed from the personal bodyguards of rulers or warlords. Occasionally, in the absence of a better means of preventing crime, groups of citizens in a community banded together for mutual protection.

In Rome the emperor Augustus established a well-regulated police force. In 7 bc he divided the city into 14 wards, and each of these was subdivided into precincts. The precincts were overseen by magistrates responsible for administration and fire protection. The following year the fire brigade was expanded into a corps of seven squads of 1,000 men each. These squads were called the vigiles—those who kept watch (vigil) over the city. Each squad was responsible for fire protection in two wards and, especially at night, for police protection. As an additional measure, Augustus created three squads of police under the command of a city prefect. In case of serious difficulty the police could ask the assistance of the emperor’s private bodyguard, the Praetorian Guard.

In Europe in the Middle Ages, police functions were carried out by servants of kings or nobles. As cities began to grow with the development of local commerce and manufacturing, the citizens were able to raise their own police forces. These were usually of a military character, since they were also needed to defend a city from attack. Most such city forces were raised from among local citizens and paid for by the merchants. As a consequence they were often used to protect business interests from attack.

Austria had a police force by 1221. In its early years it was mainly a watch service made up of private citizens. Paris, France, had some form of police protection from the 6th century. By the 14th century it had developed into an organization similar in operation to a modern police force. Copenhagen, Denmark, had a full-time force beginning about 1590; and Norway got its first chief constable in 1686, in Trondheim.

England

Before the Norman Conquest of 1066, the Saxons had a mutual-protection arrangement called the frankpledge system. It was a system of social obligation that made all adult males responsible for the good behavior of each other. When a crime occurred, a citizen would call together others and pursue the criminal. If there were no witnesses to a crime, the victim was responsible for finding out who the criminal was.

The office of constable

The frankpledge system continued following the Norman Conquest, as private citizens were still given responsibility for watching over cities at night and for apprehending known offenders. However, the new rulers added the office of constable to the justice system. The title had been used in the Roman Empire as early as the 5th century. The constable was originally a member of the royal court—the “count of the stable” in charge of the king’s horses. By the 11th century in France, the constable had become one of the chief officials of state, with power over the king’s cavalry. He also acquired judicial authority. Later he was given command of the army.

After the title of constable was introduced in England, its meaning continued to change. The English constable was originally a post in the royal court, but by the late 13th century it had evolved into a local office. Local constables were given law-enforcement powers as assistants to sheriffs. Constables were responsible for putting down riots and violent crimes. Power to arm militias enabled them to carry out these functions.

The sheriffs were local officials who performed a number of administrative tasks. The word sheriff comes from the words shire and reeve. A shire was a political subdivision (later called a county), and the reeve was its administrative official. After 1066, when church courts were separated from state courts, sheriffs became the chief officials in counties and heads of courts. They were judges in both civil and criminal cases. Today’s sheriffs are generally comparable to police chiefs and have no judicial powers.

In 1285 these law-enforcement arrangements were legalized in the Statute of Westminster. The act provided that it was a citizen’s duty to maintain the peace, and any citizen could make an arrest. If offenders were not caught in the act, the citizen had to call together neighbors to hunt for them. All citizens were required to own weapons and participate in the chase if needed. A group of citizens engaged in pursuing criminals was called a posse comitatus. (Centuries later, on the Western frontier of the United States, similar groups of citizens called posses often assisted local law-enforcement officers.) Once caught, an offender was brought before the court by a constable. This system continued until the 19th century.

The development of professional policing

The centuries-old system of constables aided by free citizens broke down under the combined effects of industrialization and urbanization. The growth of crime and serious public disorders in cities had become almost intolerable by the late 18th century.

One of the early and unofficial attempts by Londoners to police themselves appeared in 1749. The Bow Street Runners were founded by novelist Henry Fielding, who had been appointed magistrate for Westminster and Middlesex in 1748. His residence was in Bow Street, and from it he sent out his groups of thief catchers. In 1762 the Bow Street Horse Patrol was added to combat the bands of highway robbers who worked the roads leading into the city.

A different type of police force was created in London in 1798 by the West India Trading Company. (It was about this time that the word police came into English usage.) London was at that time the largest port in the world, and thefts from shipping had grown to unmanageable proportions. The Thames River Police, as the organization was known, was meant to stop these thefts. The force had a full-time staff of 80 men and a volunteer staff of more than 1,100 who could be called on when needed. The Thames River Police patrolled along the river, hoping by their presence to prevent criminal activity. They were paid regular salaries and forbidden to accept fees or gratuities for their work. So successful was this experiment that Parliament put the Thames River Police on the public payroll.

In spite of the success of the Bow Street Runners and the Thames River Police, public opinion still opposed the formation of a standing police force in London. Not until 1829 did Parliament pass the Metropolitan Police Act. It was sponsored by Robert Peel, later prime minister. Since he was considered the founder of the force, the officers have long been called bobbies. The police force was assigned to work in the London area except for the City of London itself—the square mile of territory within the city that is today the financial district. The 1829 act stipulated that all police be in uniform. They were to be paid regular salaries and were not allowed to accept any other payment for services or returned stolen property. This early police force also accumulated such other functions as looking for fires and calling out the time.

Dennis Marsico/Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

The
London police soon proved themselves a capable crime-fighting force. Public acceptance grew. In 1835 Parliament passed the Municipal Corporations Act, calling on every borough to set up a police force under the control of a local watch committee. A police force for the City of London was created in 1839. In 1856 Parliament ordered the establishment of police forces in all provinces. In 1842 London’s Metropolitan Police created the first detective branch, which became the Criminal Investigation Department in 1878. In 1883 the forerunner of today’s Special Branch was set up to deal with illegal political activities. Headquarters of the Metropolitan Police were in Scotland Yard. A new building, called New Scotland Yard, was acquired in 1967.

France

From the early Middle Ages, France had a stronger and more effective system of policing than did England. It was organized, financed, and controlled by the government, and its chief purpose was to enforce the will of the king and his ministers. The police, in effect, were the personal force of the king. One benefit of the French system was its effectiveness in protecting the average citizen from crime. Paris was safer during the 18th century than was London. Beginning in 1667, the Paris police force was under the authority of a lieutenant general of police, who was appointed by the king. The city was divided into 20 districts and was policed by 48 commissioners of police. These officials had administrative and judicial authority. There were 20 police inspectors who investigated and collected information on crime and other activities within the districts. Police captains in charge of keeping order were assisted by foot soldiers, brigades of archers, horsemen, and others on city patrol. There was also a system of secret police to spy on all citizens.

Courtesy of the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris

After
the French Revolution of 1789, the police force of Paris was reorganized. It still had political responsibilities, mainly in preventing any threats to the revolution. A Ministry of Police was created in 1796. Joseph Fouché was appointed head of the police in 1799. He greatly strengthened the power of the police, and in a few years he was the most powerful man in France after Napoleon I. In 1810 the investigative department of the police force, named the Sûreté, was formed by François-Eugène Vidocq. An ex-convict himself, Vidocq believed in using former criminals to catch criminals. He was the first of the modern detectives, and after his retirement he founded the first private detective agency. His exploits and writings inspired the creation of a new type of fiction, the detective story.

Australia

Australia was settled as a British penal colony in 1788. The earliest law enforcement in Australia followed the English system, consisting of private citizens functioning as a watch system or as constables. This situation created serious problems, because many who were meant to enforce the law were drawn from the convicts who had been sent from England to populate the colony. City police forces were established after passage in 1833 of the Sydney Police Act, which was modeled on London’s Metropolitan Police Act. In 1838 each of the six states created its own police agency.

Canada

Because Canada was colonized by both France and England, two traditions of police work were in operation during part of the 18th century. Quebec city patterned its police after those in Paris, while Upper Canada (later Ontario) used the British constabulary arrangement. After 1759 (and victory in the Seven Years’ War), the British imposed their system on the French areas. City departments were founded in Toronto in 1835, in Quebec city in 1838, and in Montreal in 1840. The first provincial police forces were established in 1867.

RCMP Photo

Canada’s best-known police agency, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), was founded in 1873 as the North West Mounted Police. Its responsibilities were to maintain control over the sparsely populated western plains region. In contrast to other Canadian police forces, the RCMP is more like a military unit. Since 1920, when the force was renamed, it has been Canada’s federal law-enforcement agency.

United States

From the colonial era until well after the American Revolution, police work was done mainly by citizens. There were night watches to look out for fires and suspicious activities. Some towns elected sheriffs or constables after the English pattern. A general opposition to establishing regular government-sponsored police forces lasted until nearly the middle of the 19th century. New York City started the first permanent police force in the United States in 1844, and by the mid-1850s most major American cities had police forces. Those early departments all used the London Metropolitan Police as a model. The first unit of state police, the Texas Rangers, was established in 1835. Few other state police organizations were founded until after World War I.

Decentralization

Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

From
the beginning, American city police forces were highly decentralized. Their loyalties were to those who hired them and appointed their officers—the local political machines. Decentralization had the advantage of keeping police in close contact with their neighborhoods, which aided them in seeing potential trouble spots. Police knew local residents and were often recruited from among them. This approach aided police in spotting troublemakers, identifying local problems, and providing various public services.

Decentralization also had its disadvantages. It exposed police to the same levels of corruption that were beginning to pervade the cities as a whole. It also hindered law enforcement because criminals observed no boundaries. They could easily flee the jurisdiction of a police force, and there was little cooperation between forces. Because of crime waves in the late 1800s, some states allowed corporations to form their own police forces. On many occasions company police were used to break labor strikes.

The
most famous independent police force was the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, founded by Allan Pinkerton in 1850. Pinkerton had immigrated to the United States from Scotland in 1842 and settled in Chicago, Illinois. After serving as deputy sheriff in Kane and Cook counties, he resigned to form his agency. It specialized at first in protecting trains from theft and in antilabor activities. During the American Civil War Pinkerton worked as a spy against the South. After the Civil War one of his detectives, James McParlan, was instrumental in breaking up the Molly Maguires, a terrorist organization that carried out crimes in the coalfields of Pennsylvania.

The first detective units in U.S. cities were established in Boston in 1846, New York City in 1857, and Chicago in 1861. They were modeled on the detective branch established by the London Metropolitan Police in 1842. The personnel of these units were frequently former constables and other thief catchers who had worked basically as bounty hunters—they were paid fees for catching criminals. This policy, when continued by a detective unit, easily bred corruption. Several investigative units had to be disbanded and reorganized after major police scandals in a number of cities.

Federal and state police

As local police departments struggled with inefficiency and corruption, the federal and state governments created their own police organizations to assist with law enforcement. The first of the federal agencies was the United States Secret Service. It was established in 1865 as a division of the Department of the Treasury to combat the rampant counterfeiting of U.S. currency. The agency greatly reduced the use of fraudulent banknotes, and subsequently it was put in charge of policing other federal crimes, including smuggling and the production of illegal liquor. Beginning in the 1890s, the Secret Service was sometimes given the added responsibility of guarding the president. This duty was made permanent after the assassination of President William McKinley in 1901.

The Bureau of Investigation—which would later become the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)—was founded within the Department of Justice in 1908. When the new agency was proposed, many U.S. congresspersons were wary because they feared it would accelerate the investigation of corruption in Congress, which had begun under the Secret Service. As a result, the bureau was authorized by an executive order of President Theodore Roosevelt, not by an act of Congress. Its early duties were investigating antitrust cases, crimes committed on government property, and crimes committed by government officials.

During the early 20th century some states began to create police forces, as other states (such as Texas and Massachusetts) had done on a smaller scale before. In 1905 Pennsylvania established the first modern state police department. Formed with the professed purpose of fighting rural crime, state police in Pennsylvania were used mostly to work around corrupt or inefficient local police forces and to control strikes in areas where local police were sympathetic to unions. Other states soon followed Pennsylvania’s lead.

Reform efforts

Efforts to reform policing during the late 19th and early 20th centuries came from both outside and inside the police system. The goal of reformers was the creation of professional police forces that operated independently of political interference. The founder of the professional policing reform movement in the United States was August Vollmer. Beginning his career in 1905 as the head of a six-person police department in Berkeley, California, Vollmer ultimately developed a model of policing that had national influence. He applied concepts from the study of management, sociology, social work, psychology, and technology to policing. He also believed that the police should have a social function in addition to their traditional law-enforcement role. For example, he argued that special juvenile bureaus should be created to handle problems of children and families and that police should work more closely with social agencies.

FBI

FBI

At
the federal level, the FBI was professionalized under the leadership of J. Edgar Hoover. Named director in 1924, Hoover thoroughly reorganized the bureau and made it into the most efficient police and investigative force in the world. He established the FBI Identification Division in 1924 to keep extensive fingerprint records. The FBI crime laboratory was created in 1932 to provide scientific crime-detection facilities, and the FBI National Academy was opened in 1935 for training local law-enforcement officials. Under Hoover’s influence, police work moved away from Vollmer’s emphasis on social work toward a focus on fighting street crime. This professional crime-fighting model of policing emphasized automobile patrols for crime prevention and rapid responses to calls for assistance.

Despite its initial promise, the crime-fighting model had many drawbacks. It greatly reduced the role of citizens in preventing crime in their neighborhoods. In addition, the motorization of police patrols isolated officers from the communities and citizens they served. Police interacted with citizens mostly in situations where a crime had been committed, and officers were expected to take some action to enforce the law. Those often negative encounters tended to increase hostility between police and citizens, especially in minority communities.

Community policing

The limitations of the professional crime-fighting model led police departments to look to alternative strategies. Many departments sought to increase their effectiveness by improving their relationships with the communities they served. In the 1980s and ’90s an increasing number of departments began using an approach known as community policing. The basic premise of community policing is that the police should involve the community in their efforts to prevent and control crime and to solve communitywide problems. Police officers assigned to community-policing duties are expected to maintain close contact with the community and to become familiar with its residents and its problems through foot patrols, community meetings, and service at neighborhood police stations. By the early 21st century, about two-thirds of local police departments in the United States, employing some nine-tenths of the country’s police officers, had some type of community-policing plan.

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